Four people have been killed and seven others injured in the latest Boko Haram attack in the restive town of Konduga in Borno State, the police confirmed, yesterday.
The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr Damian Chukwu, told reporters in Maiduguri that the jihadists detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at a village, known as Mashimari in the Konduga Local Government Area on May 27, killing the four people.
Chukwu said that two of the dead were civilians, but, however, did not explain the identities of the other victims.
According to him, the bombers managed to sneak into Mashimari, a community near an Internally Displaced Persons Camp and detonated their IED.
He said that the Police Explosive Ordinance Device Corps had been deployed to the area.
It was learnt that the bombers detonated their explosives inside a house and near a mosque in the Mashamari area of Konduga, 35 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of the Borno State capital Maiduguri, last Sunday evening.
“Three people were killed in the two attacks and seven others were injured,” chief security officer of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Bello Danbatta, told newsmen.
“One of them detonated near a mosque while residents were preparing for the evening prayers and moments later the second one detonated inside a house,” said Danbatta, who was involved in evacuation of the victims.
But Ibrahim Liman, of the civilian militia force assisting the military against Boko Haram, said two more victims died on the way to the hospital in Maiduguri, raising the death toll to five.
The attack came two weeks after five militia members were killed by a male bomber who detonated explosives concealed on him at a checkpoint outside Konduga.
Boko Haram’s nine-year violence to create a hardline Islamic state has killed 20,000 people and displaced 2.6 million from their homes in Nigeria.
The violence has spilled into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Although the militant group has been considerably weakened in a regional fight back mustering troops from Nigeria and its neighbours, attacks persist.
The jihadists have resorted to the use of suicide bombers, mostly women and girls, targeting military checkpoints, mosques, markets, bus stations, schools and other crowded places.
On May 1, at least, 86 people were killed in twin suicide blasts targeting a mosque and a nearby market in the town of Mubi in neighbouring Adamawa State.
Konduga has seen countless bloody attacks by insurgents since the crisis hit Nigeria’s expansive northeast almost a decade ago.
On February 17, this year, 22 people were killed in a bomb attack at a fish market in Konduga, one of the deadliest incidents in the recurring bloodbath in the town.
The jihadists, who are fighting to enthrone a strict Islamic state, have killed1 thousands of people, ruining the economy of the northeast and displacing millions of people.
But federal troops have decimated the fighters, making the insurgents to resort to attacking soft targets in various communities from time to time.
Sources said that two female suicide bombers suspected to be Boko Haram jihadists were behind the attack.
Meanwhile, Zamfara State Police Command has confirmed the death of seven persons in fresh attack by gunmen of Gidan-Labbo village in Gidan-Goga district of Maradun local government area of the state.
The Public Relations Officer of the Command, DSP Muhammad Shehu disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Gusau, last Sunday.
He said the unidentified bandits, last Friday attacked people of Gidan Labbo village at Malikawa Forest while the victims were clearing their farmlands to prepare for this year’s rainy season.
“As soon as we received the report, our men were deployed to the area. They discovered seven bodies”.
He said the command and other security agencies have already deployed security personnel to the area to maintain peace and stability.
He urged people of the state to continue to support security agents with information on criminals to enable them take proactive measures.
The Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Abdul’aziz Yari, yesterday, disclosed that the bandits are now sending threat letters to farmers in the state, asking them to keep away from their farms.
Yari made this known while launching the sales and distribution of fertiliser to farmers in the state at Nasarawar-Burkullu town in Bukkuyum local government area of the state.